Deja Vu

What is Deja Vu really about? I've had quite a few Deja Vu moments in life, the first one I specifically remember, was when I was about 10 years old and I was sleeping over at my friend's and had the feeling as we all sat and ate dinner, it freaked me out cos I'd never experienced it before. I've had random ones since then but the most recent one, felt really strong and real! I was lying down on A's bed just as the dawn was rising on Sunday morning, stroking his hair and plaiting it, when all of a sudden, I got a strange rush of 'Deja Vu'..I felt I'd been in this situation and moment before with him, weirdness. I told him about it and apparently, he gets Deja Vu a fair bit too..

So, I decided to do a little research about it and here's what I uncovered..

Déjà vu (pronounced /ˈdeɪʒɑː ˈvuː/ (help·info); French /deʒa vy/ (help·info) "already seen"; also called paramnesia, from Greek παρα para, "near" + μνήμη mnēmē, "memory") is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has repeated itself). The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Émile Boirac (1851–1917) in his book L'Avenir des sciences psychiques (The Future of Psychic Sciences), which expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.

The experience of déjà vu seems to be very common; in formal studies 70% of people report having experienced it at least once. References to the experience of déjà vu are also found in literature of the past, indicating it is not a new phenomenon. It has been extremely difficult to invoke the déjà vu experience in laboratory settings, therefore making it a subject of few empirical studies. Recently, researchers have found ways to recreate this sensation using hypnosis

Dreams
Some believe déjà vu is the memory of dreams. Though the majority of dreams are never remembered, a dreaming person can display activity in the areas of the brain that process long-term memory. It has been speculated that dreams read directly into long-term memory, bypassing short-term memory entirely. In this case, déjà vu might be a memory of a forgotten dream with elements in common with the current waking experience. This may be similar to another phenomenon known as déjà rêvé, or "already dreamed."

Not only is the link to dreams as they pertain to déjà vu the subject of scientific and psychological studies, it is also a subject of spiritual texts, as is found, for example, in the writings of the Bahá'í Faith with quotes like "... perchance when ten years are gone, thou wilt witness in the outer world the very things thou hast dreamed tonight."[12] and "Behold how the thing which thou hast seen in thy dream is, after a considerable lapse of time, fully realized."[13]

Some people have suggested that a feeling of remembering occurs in a sense that a person might realize that what he had dreamt is now a relevant present action that is taking place right here right now. It seems highly unlikely that a person's dream has manifested itself into reality before the present action

"I was once sitting down in the kitchen noticing that my plate seemed well too familiar, it seemed as if my head motions were foreseen, and that every move would trigger a continuation to happen or so, i had many déjà vu's as a child but this was extraordinary,i knew from the bottom of my heart that i had dreamed this situation years ago, as a little boy, that amazingly an entire piece of memory was regained and i finally understood when and where i was dreaming and how long this dream was, and most importantly how many years ago did i dream."

Parallel Universes
Scientists working on Quantum Physics have proposed the existence of Parallel Universes, which leads some to believe that déjà vu is a result of overlapping events in two or more parallel universes due to a disruption in the fabric of spacetime or when one may experience an event which has already occurred to his/her counterpart in another universe.

Reincarnation
Those believing in reincarnation theorize that déjà vu is caused by fragments of past-life memories being jarred to the surface of the mind by familiar surroundings or people. Others theorize that the phenomenon is caused by astral projection, or out-of-body experiences (OBEs), where it is possible that individuals have visited places while in their astral bodies during sleep. The sensation may also be interpreted as connected to the fulfillment of a condition as seen or felt in a premonition. For further cases of remembering information from past lives, see Ian Stevenson.